Environmental Justice Community Action Network

The organization was involved in a biogas research study in collaboration with UNC-Chapel Hill and RTI International to understand the effects of biogas digesters on human and environmental health. More than 20 participants had gone through testing with over 35 people interested in the project EJCAN was able to collect valuable rural health data, deploy sensors for air quality, collect well water samples to test for contaminants, and present this data to the community members. EJCAN has been providing water pitchers to community members with tested well water contamination by collaborating with partners at NCDHHS and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ). Since the start of this project, 27 water pitchers and 28 filters have been provided to community members EJCAN) has been active in community outreach and gaining feedback from community members to help guide future program planning. This included meeting with community members across the county, attending community meetings and building relationships with local leaders to identify potential members of a community advisory group, and getting bilingual survey feedback from dozens of community members regarding what issues they consider to be important and what are barriers that prevent them from attending programs. EJCAN is working on an ongoing Air Quality Project in partnership with CleanAIRE NC, Easter Research Group (ERG), Research Triangle Institute (RTI), and UNC-Charlotte. This projects main goal is to fill the void of lack of data in this part of the state. We also work with community members, called AirKeepers, that host air quality sensors at their homes for an extended period of time. AirKeepers also participate in training sessions and gather the data. EJCAN negotiated a Consent Decreewhich is a binding agreement filed in federal courtthat required GFL to stop discharging massive amounts of PFAS into Bearskin Swamp, the stream that runs by the Landfill and through the Snow Hill Community. Specifically, GFL agreed to install a treatment system to remove PFAS from its wastewater and to track and respond to public complaints, install an odor-monitoring system around the landfill, and make the data publicly available. The real-time odor monitoring website went live in October. In 2026, once the system has been running for a full year, GFL will be required to retain an independent expert to recommend odor-reduction measures based on the systems data. Over the past year, EJCANs work and research have been featured in several academic journals, including Special Issue: Cumulative Impacts, and the American Bar Association Trends magazine online and etc.